If oil is no more? Well, sheikh with her
Inspired by this .
The prices of oil and gasoline hit records with it, and in certain circles the hysteria continues around the so-called “peak of oil”, which supposedly, like a flown woodpecker, should destroy our entire civilization. Here, for example, one Russian-speaking Californian is trying to ask the Americans who are tiring him: “When will oil become cheaper?” And ask them so that they no longer answer. Another Russian-speaking at the time when the audience was shocked by the collapse of the dot-com and 9/11 events, tried to finally finish it with the horror “Problem-2033” (I would rather call it “diagnosis”) - and created a breeding ground for all kinds of anastasians and other things obscurantism.
It is thanks to such alarmists who believed that we are at the "peak" and exit only through the entrance, that is, back to the ground and so on, and we have a situation where there is more oil than ever, though the consumption is growing, but slower than production, suppliers simply grab their heads, and speculators inflate the price. However, there is in this and its pluses. The crisis is not fatal. And now there will be a bucket of shit on the head of the anxiety and a tub of water for those who succumb to their propaganda.
')
Let's start with the common misconception - "we do not have enough energy."
As it is known, energy and substance are two forms of one matter. Formula E = mc ^ 2, I hope everyone knows. In any lump of shit, energy zashib, if only to learn how to annihilate it and not to ruin the Earth. Therefore, the point is not in the energy itself, but in access to it.
We do not have enough available energy?
The power of energy that falls on us from a star called the Sun is about 10,000 times greater than today's needs of the entire Earth. Part of it passes into the energy of wind and water, some feeds the greens, the rest is reflected and goes into space. This is all available with existing technologies, if you deploy them at full power. Here we have not yet, deployed infrastructure. Why we do not have a deployed alternative infrastructure? Because until recently it was not cost effective.
Therefore, we all Khan, because alternative solutions are unprofitable?
It is necessary to distinguish between economic and energy benefits. The first is measured in money and shows how many rubles the ruble invests in the business (ROI) brings. The second - how many kilowatt-hours can bring one kilowatt-hour spent on production (EROEI). EROEI is determined by the laws of physics, available technologies and the effectiveness of their implementation.
Today, the situation is such that ROI for large-scale investments in oil production is “fabulous” (which causes fierce non-economic competition for the opportunity to invest in it, even wars), and alternative solutions are a niche market for enthusiasts and far-sighted. As for EROEI, it tends to decrease in oil (it no longer beats out of the ground anywhere, as before), while in the sun and a number of other promising sources, on the contrary, it rises.
But critics of the solar industry claim that it does not pay off energetically, does it mean for us PPV?
Here it is necessary to distinguish between theoretical and practical EROEI. For example, the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen under no circumstances can give EROEI> 1, that is, water is not a source of clean energy for hydrogen energy, it is impossible to “burn” water in some luts. It is quite another thing - a constant flow of energy from the sun. The problems of the solar energy of the past consisted in expensive (economically and energetically) power plants and their short lifespan. But sorry, this is not nature, but technology! There are no fundamental restrictions on making the production of panels cheap, and the service life is long enough to pay off. What is actively being done, the market is growing by 40% per year, the technology is being improved. There is no insoluble principal problem.
In economic terms, it is expected that the “network parity” (the same cost of traditional and unconventional energy) by the sun in well-lit regions will be achieved by 2012, in not very well-lit regions by 2018. That's when the niche market will begin to occupy a full-fledged place in the world energy, not a measly 0.1%. This is only the sun, without taking into account wind, water and traditional energy carriers that do not disappear anywhere.
However, it takes time, alarmists say it was necessary to think for 20 years, and the peak is already coming, will we all die?
Indeed, many sectors of the economy are still tied to cheap oil. But the economy, even globalized, is very heterogeneous. Who is bankrupt, and who is on this and wins. For example, raising the price of fuel twice stimulates optimization from two sides: from the production side (more economical decisions) and from the consumption side (moving less and in action).
This is all because of the Americans, they live beyond their means, rob the rest of the world, and we suffer because of them?
This is a favorite argument of the alarmist, attracting to them the crowd of American-and West-haters. You see, they say, this decomposing Western culture with its capitalism, feminism, consumption, this is a natural plundering of resources, they, you know, go against nature, they ride cars, they don’t want to revenge on nature!
This position is the root of the rotten thinking of the alarmist and other fundamentalists. The "man-nature" system has always been non-equilibrium, from the very beginning of human civilization. Kapitalizm began from the moment when, instead of exchanging blows of clubs, there was an exchange of hides for stone axes. “Feminism”, or the transition from the complete domination of instincts to the conscious construction of human relations, is evident when the first people began to see each other not only as an enemy or as a prey. Well, "consumption" is its history, probably from amoebas. Any living system is open and requires an influx of energy from the outside, in whatever form.
By itself, the American way of life, as it is usually painted, is secluded living somewhere in the suburbs, frequent trips with a powerful car, moving quickly over long distances by air, consuming many goods and services is not a fundamental “crime against the environment”, as This is usually drawn by anti-Westerners. The reasons for its still limited distribution are not physical, but economic. Opening a resource, civilization, like a living organism, strives immediately to “master” it and ties the rest of the market to its availability. There is cheap oil - it means there is no need to bathe, invent economical engines, optimize the transport infrastructure, oil has risen in price - you have to strain your brains and look closely at the Japanese, it always cost them more.
The reasons for today's rise in oil prices are not in supply, but in demand, and the communication revolution played a significant role in this. It allowed freeing up the human potential of most of the former “third world” - both hands and heads. Even 50-100 years ago, this potential went idle, into Malthusian cycles of harvests and famine, today it turned out to be possible to organize somewhere in China or India a mobile factory or development office and, not least, to ensure their connection with the “first” world. Transport opportunities have not increased significantly - the goods are delivered by almost the same ships, trains, cars and airplanes with almost the same speed. But communication has increased dramatically, and this has caused a global redistribution of claims to contribute to the global economy. In addition, there was a quantitative growth in the economically active population: those born at the peak of growth rates in the 1960s and 1970s entered into a mature life, began to work and earn.
Can a civilization "roll back" because its rise was allegedly caused by oil (as alarmists claim)? That is, do we face a new Middle Ages, a stone age, or even extinction?
Here, alarmists put a cart in front of the locomotive. Not oil has created a modern (industrial, technological) civilization. First there was a scientific method, and then the development of coal, oil, uranium, now - solar energy in different forms, tomorrow - maybe helium-3 or something else. Progress did not begin with oil and will not end with it (by the way, in the 19th century it was already made dependent on coal). All horror stories, which tell alarmists to their victims, horror stories and remain. This of course does not mean that there will be no problems at all, it means that the problems are not fatal. If in certain regions a drop in the standard of living is possible, then a maximum of 10-12 years. So much required for recovery after the Second World War.
But does the third one for the remaining resources threaten us?
To begin with, the war between developed countries with powerful weapons of mass destruction is not economically beneficial to any of them. The attack of a developed country against a developing or a war between two developing countries or a regional conflict can be beneficial. To do this, on the one hand there is a wild demand, and on the other, substantial supply, control of which can significantly change the balance in the market and create a monopoly (which happened with Iraq).
But resources as such are not some kind of fixed and constantly dwindling stock. What is a resource, and what it is not, depends on the current level of technology. And if we look at the general picture of the development of civilization, we see an unequivocal shift from a small amount of non-alternative resources for which there was intense competition (land, forest, gold, transport routes) to a large number of alternative ones, changing the balance between which is more often stimulated not by wars for the rest, and development to do without this residue. Competition descends from the state level to the level of companies and other organizations, and the states and international institutions become an instrument for the constructive resolution of this competition, the “global police”. The most reliable peacemaker is money. That same "capitalism". And alarmists in the event of war, by the way, are shot.
Of course, this does not mean that the market will solve everything and any conflicts are excluded. The market is inert, and there are still many reasons for conflict, but this is particular. The overall picture is important. The world is uniquely moving from a fixed-cake model to a cake growing like yeast. The current temporary actualization of the resource issue is an echo of the concluding demographic transition, a qualitative change in the way of life of earthlings, a peak, but not of oil, but of an oil rush. There is life after oil, and a much higher level than during oil or even more so before it. In a progressive, not fundamentalist understanding of the word.
What is the real role of cheap oil for civilization?
On the one hand, it is the acceleration of development, which allowed to quickly build a global transport, and then a communication system with which the world began to work as a whole. This is the positive role of oil.
On the other hand, the discovery of the single most "tasty" at this stage and concentrated in certain places of the resource caused the temptation for certain structures to get control over this resource and use it for short-term goals. Thanks to oil, some people had the opportunity to relax and watch the “negros” plowing. Business approaches based on extensive growth — oil production or the reproduction of foreign labor — have become common. This is a negative role. And just this, and not positive achievements, after the “peak of oil” will decline, because it will lose the economic battle with the business in the style of Silicon Valley.
But, as alarmists say, in the event of a recession, the latest achievements will be covered first?
Nothing like this. High-tech eats much less energy than the lowway, and the savings provide substantial. Therefore, what, what, and the nervous (communication) and circulatory (transport) systems of the global organism will work even in the event of an economic shock. It is possible that at certain times in certain regions, some sort of rationing, intermediate imperfect decisions (corn ethanol, for example), a ban on too voracious technology will be required. But in general, the solution of the energy problem is an even greater development of technology, and not some kind of rollback to the mythical past idealized by the alarmists.
Oil generally has the ability to turn off the brain. Why strain them if you can stupidly suck the remains of ancient dead bodies from a well? When at one time the price of gasoline in the United States crept up to the price of gasoline in Ukraine, there were cries. Well, what were you thinking about when buying a jeep and settling in 50 km from the place of work? Build a new urbanism now.
And by the way, built. Unlike Saudi sheikhs. One of them once spoke in an alarming manner, saying that his great-grandfather rode a camel, he flies on a private jet, but his great-grandchildren will ride a camel again, since the oil of the khan and the civilization of the khan. I think he is wrong. He will have no great-grandchildren, in general.
So, you can sit back, the crisis will not be?
There is a crisis. He can not eat :). The transformation of the industrial civilization of the Second Wave into the civilization of the Third Wave (and, as we have already considered, by no means the First) has already begun, and shifts in lifestyle too. And here the experience of the past, if it can be useful, then only as an example for special cases. “The experience of the future” is much more scarce and in demand. In short, this is an internal readiness for living in a world without stereotypes. Business 2.0, career 2.0, education 2.0, culture 2.0, even sex 2.0 and life in general 2.0. All this is changing in a largely predictable way, more than once described by the same Toffler and other futurologists, if we talk about general trends (more flexibility, more mobility, more diversity in general), and not about specific phenomena like the whole business field. which was formed around Google (yes, even if someone had reported this in the 1970s, who would understand it?).
The reason that they are "prophets" in their predictions to rational optimism, while others - to irrational pessimism, lies solely in their heads. As Wilson said: we have an inner thinking and an inner proving in our head. Whatever thinks, proving it will prove. The result is important. Today's result lies in the palm, tomorrow's in the fog, but he is.
Virtually all alarmist ideas about the lack of resources are inspired by the owners of these resources themselves, like that of Sheikh Ibn the camel. The goal is simple: to get more for the same barrel of decomposed organic matter today, because tomorrow it will not be so necessary. And fundamentalism from the same barrel is sponsored. The peak of oil has not yet arrived (production is growing), and most likely it will pass far below the theoretical possibilities of oil production due to the already begun decline in oil dependence. In the 1970s, there were far more reasons to worry than now. Perhaps even today's aggravation is not the last, that is, a cycle of relatively low prices will pass, as in the 1990s, with a global division into oil-resistant and oil-sensitive regions and a slight crisis of the latter. In real prices, by the way, we are still far from the shock of 1973. But there is no doubt that this bubble will burst sooner or later. Problem 2033 has real and quite technological solutions. Oil goes into the furnace of history? Well, the sheikh with her.
The prices of oil and gasoline hit records with it, and in certain circles the hysteria continues around the so-called “peak of oil”, which supposedly, like a flown woodpecker, should destroy our entire civilization. Here, for example, one Russian-speaking Californian is trying to ask the Americans who are tiring him: “When will oil become cheaper?” And ask them so that they no longer answer. Another Russian-speaking at the time when the audience was shocked by the collapse of the dot-com and 9/11 events, tried to finally finish it with the horror “Problem-2033” (I would rather call it “diagnosis”) - and created a breeding ground for all kinds of anastasians and other things obscurantism.
It is thanks to such alarmists who believed that we are at the "peak" and exit only through the entrance, that is, back to the ground and so on, and we have a situation where there is more oil than ever, though the consumption is growing, but slower than production, suppliers simply grab their heads, and speculators inflate the price. However, there is in this and its pluses. The crisis is not fatal. And now there will be a bucket of shit on the head of the anxiety and a tub of water for those who succumb to their propaganda.
')
Let's start with the common misconception - "we do not have enough energy."
As it is known, energy and substance are two forms of one matter. Formula E = mc ^ 2, I hope everyone knows. In any lump of shit, energy zashib, if only to learn how to annihilate it and not to ruin the Earth. Therefore, the point is not in the energy itself, but in access to it.
We do not have enough available energy?
The power of energy that falls on us from a star called the Sun is about 10,000 times greater than today's needs of the entire Earth. Part of it passes into the energy of wind and water, some feeds the greens, the rest is reflected and goes into space. This is all available with existing technologies, if you deploy them at full power. Here we have not yet, deployed infrastructure. Why we do not have a deployed alternative infrastructure? Because until recently it was not cost effective.
Therefore, we all Khan, because alternative solutions are unprofitable?
It is necessary to distinguish between economic and energy benefits. The first is measured in money and shows how many rubles the ruble invests in the business (ROI) brings. The second - how many kilowatt-hours can bring one kilowatt-hour spent on production (EROEI). EROEI is determined by the laws of physics, available technologies and the effectiveness of their implementation.
Today, the situation is such that ROI for large-scale investments in oil production is “fabulous” (which causes fierce non-economic competition for the opportunity to invest in it, even wars), and alternative solutions are a niche market for enthusiasts and far-sighted. As for EROEI, it tends to decrease in oil (it no longer beats out of the ground anywhere, as before), while in the sun and a number of other promising sources, on the contrary, it rises.
But critics of the solar industry claim that it does not pay off energetically, does it mean for us PPV?
Here it is necessary to distinguish between theoretical and practical EROEI. For example, the decomposition of water into hydrogen and oxygen under no circumstances can give EROEI> 1, that is, water is not a source of clean energy for hydrogen energy, it is impossible to “burn” water in some luts. It is quite another thing - a constant flow of energy from the sun. The problems of the solar energy of the past consisted in expensive (economically and energetically) power plants and their short lifespan. But sorry, this is not nature, but technology! There are no fundamental restrictions on making the production of panels cheap, and the service life is long enough to pay off. What is actively being done, the market is growing by 40% per year, the technology is being improved. There is no insoluble principal problem.
In economic terms, it is expected that the “network parity” (the same cost of traditional and unconventional energy) by the sun in well-lit regions will be achieved by 2012, in not very well-lit regions by 2018. That's when the niche market will begin to occupy a full-fledged place in the world energy, not a measly 0.1%. This is only the sun, without taking into account wind, water and traditional energy carriers that do not disappear anywhere.
However, it takes time, alarmists say it was necessary to think for 20 years, and the peak is already coming, will we all die?
Indeed, many sectors of the economy are still tied to cheap oil. But the economy, even globalized, is very heterogeneous. Who is bankrupt, and who is on this and wins. For example, raising the price of fuel twice stimulates optimization from two sides: from the production side (more economical decisions) and from the consumption side (moving less and in action).
This is all because of the Americans, they live beyond their means, rob the rest of the world, and we suffer because of them?
This is a favorite argument of the alarmist, attracting to them the crowd of American-and West-haters. You see, they say, this decomposing Western culture with its capitalism, feminism, consumption, this is a natural plundering of resources, they, you know, go against nature, they ride cars, they don’t want to revenge on nature!
This position is the root of the rotten thinking of the alarmist and other fundamentalists. The "man-nature" system has always been non-equilibrium, from the very beginning of human civilization. Kapitalizm began from the moment when, instead of exchanging blows of clubs, there was an exchange of hides for stone axes. “Feminism”, or the transition from the complete domination of instincts to the conscious construction of human relations, is evident when the first people began to see each other not only as an enemy or as a prey. Well, "consumption" is its history, probably from amoebas. Any living system is open and requires an influx of energy from the outside, in whatever form.
By itself, the American way of life, as it is usually painted, is secluded living somewhere in the suburbs, frequent trips with a powerful car, moving quickly over long distances by air, consuming many goods and services is not a fundamental “crime against the environment”, as This is usually drawn by anti-Westerners. The reasons for its still limited distribution are not physical, but economic. Opening a resource, civilization, like a living organism, strives immediately to “master” it and ties the rest of the market to its availability. There is cheap oil - it means there is no need to bathe, invent economical engines, optimize the transport infrastructure, oil has risen in price - you have to strain your brains and look closely at the Japanese, it always cost them more.
The reasons for today's rise in oil prices are not in supply, but in demand, and the communication revolution played a significant role in this. It allowed freeing up the human potential of most of the former “third world” - both hands and heads. Even 50-100 years ago, this potential went idle, into Malthusian cycles of harvests and famine, today it turned out to be possible to organize somewhere in China or India a mobile factory or development office and, not least, to ensure their connection with the “first” world. Transport opportunities have not increased significantly - the goods are delivered by almost the same ships, trains, cars and airplanes with almost the same speed. But communication has increased dramatically, and this has caused a global redistribution of claims to contribute to the global economy. In addition, there was a quantitative growth in the economically active population: those born at the peak of growth rates in the 1960s and 1970s entered into a mature life, began to work and earn.
Can a civilization "roll back" because its rise was allegedly caused by oil (as alarmists claim)? That is, do we face a new Middle Ages, a stone age, or even extinction?
Here, alarmists put a cart in front of the locomotive. Not oil has created a modern (industrial, technological) civilization. First there was a scientific method, and then the development of coal, oil, uranium, now - solar energy in different forms, tomorrow - maybe helium-3 or something else. Progress did not begin with oil and will not end with it (by the way, in the 19th century it was already made dependent on coal). All horror stories, which tell alarmists to their victims, horror stories and remain. This of course does not mean that there will be no problems at all, it means that the problems are not fatal. If in certain regions a drop in the standard of living is possible, then a maximum of 10-12 years. So much required for recovery after the Second World War.
But does the third one for the remaining resources threaten us?
To begin with, the war between developed countries with powerful weapons of mass destruction is not economically beneficial to any of them. The attack of a developed country against a developing or a war between two developing countries or a regional conflict can be beneficial. To do this, on the one hand there is a wild demand, and on the other, substantial supply, control of which can significantly change the balance in the market and create a monopoly (which happened with Iraq).
But resources as such are not some kind of fixed and constantly dwindling stock. What is a resource, and what it is not, depends on the current level of technology. And if we look at the general picture of the development of civilization, we see an unequivocal shift from a small amount of non-alternative resources for which there was intense competition (land, forest, gold, transport routes) to a large number of alternative ones, changing the balance between which is more often stimulated not by wars for the rest, and development to do without this residue. Competition descends from the state level to the level of companies and other organizations, and the states and international institutions become an instrument for the constructive resolution of this competition, the “global police”. The most reliable peacemaker is money. That same "capitalism". And alarmists in the event of war, by the way, are shot.
Of course, this does not mean that the market will solve everything and any conflicts are excluded. The market is inert, and there are still many reasons for conflict, but this is particular. The overall picture is important. The world is uniquely moving from a fixed-cake model to a cake growing like yeast. The current temporary actualization of the resource issue is an echo of the concluding demographic transition, a qualitative change in the way of life of earthlings, a peak, but not of oil, but of an oil rush. There is life after oil, and a much higher level than during oil or even more so before it. In a progressive, not fundamentalist understanding of the word.
What is the real role of cheap oil for civilization?
On the one hand, it is the acceleration of development, which allowed to quickly build a global transport, and then a communication system with which the world began to work as a whole. This is the positive role of oil.
On the other hand, the discovery of the single most "tasty" at this stage and concentrated in certain places of the resource caused the temptation for certain structures to get control over this resource and use it for short-term goals. Thanks to oil, some people had the opportunity to relax and watch the “negros” plowing. Business approaches based on extensive growth — oil production or the reproduction of foreign labor — have become common. This is a negative role. And just this, and not positive achievements, after the “peak of oil” will decline, because it will lose the economic battle with the business in the style of Silicon Valley.
But, as alarmists say, in the event of a recession, the latest achievements will be covered first?
Nothing like this. High-tech eats much less energy than the lowway, and the savings provide substantial. Therefore, what, what, and the nervous (communication) and circulatory (transport) systems of the global organism will work even in the event of an economic shock. It is possible that at certain times in certain regions, some sort of rationing, intermediate imperfect decisions (corn ethanol, for example), a ban on too voracious technology will be required. But in general, the solution of the energy problem is an even greater development of technology, and not some kind of rollback to the mythical past idealized by the alarmists.
Oil generally has the ability to turn off the brain. Why strain them if you can stupidly suck the remains of ancient dead bodies from a well? When at one time the price of gasoline in the United States crept up to the price of gasoline in Ukraine, there were cries. Well, what were you thinking about when buying a jeep and settling in 50 km from the place of work? Build a new urbanism now.
And by the way, built. Unlike Saudi sheikhs. One of them once spoke in an alarming manner, saying that his great-grandfather rode a camel, he flies on a private jet, but his great-grandchildren will ride a camel again, since the oil of the khan and the civilization of the khan. I think he is wrong. He will have no great-grandchildren, in general.
So, you can sit back, the crisis will not be?
There is a crisis. He can not eat :). The transformation of the industrial civilization of the Second Wave into the civilization of the Third Wave (and, as we have already considered, by no means the First) has already begun, and shifts in lifestyle too. And here the experience of the past, if it can be useful, then only as an example for special cases. “The experience of the future” is much more scarce and in demand. In short, this is an internal readiness for living in a world without stereotypes. Business 2.0, career 2.0, education 2.0, culture 2.0, even sex 2.0 and life in general 2.0. All this is changing in a largely predictable way, more than once described by the same Toffler and other futurologists, if we talk about general trends (more flexibility, more mobility, more diversity in general), and not about specific phenomena like the whole business field. which was formed around Google (yes, even if someone had reported this in the 1970s, who would understand it?).
The reason that they are "prophets" in their predictions to rational optimism, while others - to irrational pessimism, lies solely in their heads. As Wilson said: we have an inner thinking and an inner proving in our head. Whatever thinks, proving it will prove. The result is important. Today's result lies in the palm, tomorrow's in the fog, but he is.
Virtually all alarmist ideas about the lack of resources are inspired by the owners of these resources themselves, like that of Sheikh Ibn the camel. The goal is simple: to get more for the same barrel of decomposed organic matter today, because tomorrow it will not be so necessary. And fundamentalism from the same barrel is sponsored. The peak of oil has not yet arrived (production is growing), and most likely it will pass far below the theoretical possibilities of oil production due to the already begun decline in oil dependence. In the 1970s, there were far more reasons to worry than now. Perhaps even today's aggravation is not the last, that is, a cycle of relatively low prices will pass, as in the 1990s, with a global division into oil-resistant and oil-sensitive regions and a slight crisis of the latter. In real prices, by the way, we are still far from the shock of 1973. But there is no doubt that this bubble will burst sooner or later. Problem 2033 has real and quite technological solutions. Oil goes into the furnace of history? Well, the sheikh with her.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/28186/
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